andy?" asks Dulce, who is rubbing the hands of the
senseless man, trying to restore animation by this means.

"Yes, yes, I had forgotten," says Roger, and then he kneels down once
again, and takes Stephen into his arms, and raising his head on his
knee, tries to force a few drops of the brandy between his pallid lips.

At this supreme moment all is forgotten--all the old heartaches, the
cruel taunts, the angry words. Once again he is his earliest friend; the
boy, the youth, the man, he had loved, until a woman had come between
them. Everything rushes back upon him, as he stoops over Gower, and
gazes, with passionate fear and grief, upon his marble face.

After all, there had been more good points than bad about Stephen, more
good, indeed, than about most fellows. How fond he had been of him in
the old days; how angry he would have been with any one who had dared
then to accuse him of acting shabbily, or-- Well, well, no use in raking
up old grievances, now, and no doubt there was great temptation; and
besides, too, uncivil things had been said to him, and he (Roger) had
certainly not been up to the mark himself in many ways.

Memories of school and college life crowd upon Roger now, as he gazes
with ever-increasing fear upon the rigid features below him; little
scenes, insignificant in themselves, but enriched by honest sentiment,
and tenderly connected With the dawn of manhood, when the fastidious
Gower had been attracted and fascinated by the bolder and more reckless
qualities of Dare, recur to him now with a clearness that, under the
present miserable circumstances, is almost painful.

He tries to shake off those tormenting recollections; to bury his happy
college life out of sight, only to find his mind once more busy on a
fresh field.

Again he is at school, with Stephen near him, and all the glory of an
Eton fight before him. What glorious old days they were! so full of life
and vigor! and now, it is with exceeding pathos he calls to mind one
memorable day on which he had banged Stephen most triumphantly about the
head with a Latin grammar--Stephen's grammar, be it understood, which
had always seemed to add an additional zest to the affair; and then the
free fight afterwards, in which he, Roger, had been again victorious;
and Stephen had not taken it badly either; had resented neither the
Latin banging nor the victory later on. No, he was certainly not
ill-tempered _then_, dear old chap. Even before the blood